The environmental protection department filed a case, and thousands of villagers in Chenzhou were in drinking water dilemma: nearly 100 tons of feces from the pig farm polluted the water source
"Severely punish the 'murderer' and give me back my health," this banner was hung near the pig farm by the villagers.
This large-scale pig farm is located in Yangtang Township, Yongxing County, Chenzhou City, Hunan Province. A manure pollution incident occurred in mid-April. Villagers in Bacmeng Village in this township reported that the well water smelled like pig feces, and test reports showed that the drinking water contained varying degrees of coliform contamination, involving more than 1,000 local drinking water residents.
The manure from the pig farm is the "murderer" of this pollution. Environmental protection law enforcement officers found that nearly a hundred tons of feces and residue were piled on an open hillside. After being washed away by rainwater, they polluted the drinking water source of the villagers down the mountain.
"Pig manure is piled in the open air. It rains on those days. Problems can occur without even thinking about it." Li Jingxian, secretary of the Yangtang Township Party Committee, told The Paper.
The owner of the pig farm involved is Yongxing County Tianju Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd., and the person responsible for the breeding is Hunan Xinwufeng Co., Ltd. The “environmental protection company” Li Jingxian mentioned is Hunan Beetle Environmental Technology Co., Ltd., which is responsible for sewage treatment in pig farms.
Since the incident, local organizers have been delivering bottled water every day to solve the drinking water problem of the villagers. The environmental protection department opened a case for investigation and urged the companies involved to clean up the open-air excrement.
“We are dealing with this matter.” On May 9, Zhou Tang, director of the Yongxing Branch of the Chenzhou Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau, told The Paper: “The rectification and punishment must be in place.”
The latest inspection report from the Yongxing County Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that no total coliform bacteria have been detected in the well water in Bacmeng Village. On May 9th and 10th, the local organization organized the companies involved to negotiate with the villagers to handle follow-up matters.
Pollution: Coliform bacteria were detected in villagers’ drinking water, and local organizations delivered bottled water
Bacmeng Village, about 40 kilometers away from Yongxing County, is a demonstration village for new rural construction in Hunan Province. The villages here are neat and tidy, and the Beijing-Guangzhou High-speed Railway Bridge passes through the villages. The drinking water of the villagers is mainly tap water pumped from the wells on the river. In addition, there are two public wells in the village. Some villagers who do not have tap water have dug wells more than ten meters deep at home.
There is a lush cypress tree in the village, and next to the tree is an old well with a history of hundreds of years. On May 8, a reporter from The Paper saw here that the "head well" of Laojing, the drinking well, was surrounded by stainless steel railings and a warning cordon. A striking red sign was inserted next to it, which read It was written: "The well water has a peculiar smell and is forbidden to be drank", and was signed as "The Village Committee of Eight Centimeters Village".
Around the well and at the water outlet, it can be seen that the originally green moss has turned to yellow. The reporter held the well water in his hand and did not smell any peculiar smell. According to villagers, after cleaning the well many times, the water quality is much better than half a month ago.
A video shot by villager Huang Haijun showed that on April 14, when he came to the well to wash his feet, he smelled a foul smell and some white foam was floating on the water. "This well smells like pig shit. It stinks like hell." Huang Haijun said while taking pictures with his mobile phone.
After that, villagers who drew water from their own wells for drinking also discovered that the well water had a smell. "It's not a little smelly, it's very smelly." Villager Huang Yunhua told The Paper: "It feels a little sticky when I wash my hands, and my hands are smelly."
Villager Huang Huade said that he fished out some dead small fish and shrimps from the bottom of his own well. "This has never happened before." However, during the reporter's interview, there was a power outage in Bacmfen Village, and the villagers were unable to pump water from their deep wells.
Huang Yunhua said that one day in early May, he put a small crucian carp and loach caught in the field and put it into the old well in the village for "experiments." "As soon as the crucian carp was put into the well water, it jumped up hard, and the loach was the first He died in two days."
"There used to be a lot of small fish and shrimps in the well, but now we can't see any of them." Huang Renhe, a villager in his seventies standing by the old well, sighed.
Some tap water users in the village also reported that the tap water in the taps had a peculiar smell. "It's much better now. I could smell it some time ago," said villager Huang Shuihua.
A few days ago, Huang Shuihua went to Laojing to wash clothes for his two grandsons. After drying the clothes, the eldest grandson smelled the smell and refused to wear them. The younger grandson wore the clothes and had many red spots on his body the next day.
Villagers Huang Huajun, Huang Junde and others said that after taking a bath with tap water at home some time ago, they experienced itching and eczema-like skin diseases.
According to the test commissioned by the environmental protection department, total coliform bacteria were detected in the water quality. Photo provided by interviewee
On April 16, villagers Huang Huade and Huang Zhiguang took water samples from their homes and old wells in the village and sent them to the Beihu District Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Chenzhou City for testing. The test results showed that the total number of bacteria and total coliform bacteria in the water from the three wells exceeded the standards.
According to the "Hygienic Standards for Drinking Water", the total number of bacteria must not exceed 100CFU/ml. The well water of Huang Zhiguang's home and Huang Huade's home had this test indicator data of 156 and 212 respectively, while the total number of bacteria in the old well in the village reached 587.
According to regulations, total coliform bacteria must not be detected in drinking water. However, the well water of Huang Zhiguang's home and Huang Huade's home had this indicator data of 11 and 52 respectively, while the total coliform bacteria in the old well in the village reached 240.
On April 17, the Yongxing Branch of the Chenzhou Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau commissioned a testing agency to test drinking water at four locations in Bacmfen Village. Later, the village committee posted the test report on the village affairs bulletin board. The test report showed that most of the indicators were qualified, but total coliform bacteria were detected - the minimum number was 8 and the maximum number was 33.
On April 18, personnel from organizations at both the village and village levels delivered bottled water to villagers in Bacmeng Village, with the costs borne by the companies involved. According to statistics, the water source pollution affected 1,289 people in 10 groups in Bacmeng Village.
On May 8, a reporter from The Paper saw at the village headquarters of Bacmfen Village that bottled water sent by staff was placed next to the village committee office, and villagers came to collect water from time to time. “One barrel weighs more than 30 kilograms,” said villager Huang Changmao. The 74-year-old is responsible for registration here, and each villager can receive two barrels of pure water every day.
On April 15, villagers photographed dung on the hillside. Photo provided by interviewee
Reason: The source of pollution comes from large pig farms, where nearly a hundred tons of manure are piled in the open.
Villagers in Bacmen Village reported that the water source was polluted this time by a large pig farm built on the mountain.
Reporters from The Paper found locally that the pig farm involved was about two or three kilometers away from Bacmfen Village and located on the top of Pingdingling, a mountain top in Jingxing Village, Yangtang Township.
Driving along the winding mountain road to Pingdingling, the cement road ends at the pig farm. The electric retractable door here is tightly closed, and a warning sign saying "Epidemic Prevention Area, No Entry" is erected next to it. Several banners were hung in the grass on both sides of the gate, signed "All Villagers of Eight Centimeters", with slogans such as "Reject drinking water pollution, give me back my health".
On one side of the pig farm gate, there are the names of two companies: Hunan Xinwufeng Co., Ltd. and Yongxing County Tianju Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd.
The Paper has learned that Yongxing County Tianqi Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company is the builder of the pig farm. Industrial and commercial information shows that the parent company of "Tianqi Agriculture and Animal Husbandry" is a subsidiary of Hunan Rural Facilities Construction Company-Hunan Province Second Engineering Company. company, and the parent company of Hunan Second Engineering Company is Hunan Construction Engineering Group.
Tianqi Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company is the owner of the pig farm involved, and the person responsible for the breeding is Hunan Xinwufeng Co., Ltd., whose major shareholders are Hunan Modern Agricultural Industry Holding Group, Hunan Grain, Oil and Food Import and Export Group, etc.
Environmental impact assessment reports and other information show that the pig farm located on the mountain was designed to produce 60,000 pigs per year, with a total investment of about 60 million yuan and an area of more than 320 acres. Later, Tianqi Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company applied to expand the scale to 80,000 pigs per year, with a total investment of 120 million yuan. The project was approved by the Chenzhou Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau in October 2021.
On the other side of the pig farm, go up the steep cement road and you will come to the "environmental protection zone". The person responsible for sewage treatment here is a private enterprise - Hunan Dung Beetle Environmental Technology Co., Ltd.
On May 8, when a reporter from The Paper went to Yangtang Township Government for an interview, he met the relevant persons in charge of the three companies involved in the pig farm and asked about the cause of the pollution incident.
"This is what happened..." Zhang Yongjun, the head of Hunan Beetle Technology Company, was about to answer when he was interrupted by Liu Yixiao, the legal representative of Tianjue Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company.
"At that time, let's talk based on the official documents of the Environmental Protection Bureau." Liu Yixiao said, "Because we are not professional, we are afraid that there will be problems with the expression."
During the unannounced visit that day, Jiang, the head of sewage treatment technology at the pig farm of Dung Beetle Technology Company, introduced some situations: "I heard that a villager planted tea trees, and he transported dung residue and piled it on the hillside. It seemed that there were dozens of Car. It rained heavily those days and the dung was washed away."
This large-scale pig-raising project is supervised by the Yongxing Branch of the Chenzhou Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau. Liao Xiangwen, deputy captain of the bureau's law enforcement team, confirmed that the "culprit" causing the drinking water pollution was the feces piled on the hillside.
“A villager who grew tea trees pulled eighty or ninety tons of cooked manure from the pig manure shed and dumped it on the hillside north of the pig farm.” Liao Xiangwen told The Paper that the manure residue was piled into two piles and had not been applied as fertilizer. When we went down, it rained continuously in April. The rain washed away the excrement and polluted the well water at the foot of the mountain.
On April 15, villagers photographed dung on the hillside. Photo provided by interviewee
On April 15, some villagers came to the hillside north of the pig farm. Pictures of the scene taken with their mobile phones showed that patches of dark brown manure were piled up on the hillside, and no anti-leakage measures were taken.
“I think the people in the environmental protection company are too simple-minded.” Li Jingxian, secretary of the Yangtang Township Party Committee, told The Paper: “Pig manure is piled up in the open and it rains on those days. Problems can arise without even thinking about it.”
Rectification: The environmental protection department will initiate an investigation, and the company involved will negotiate with the villagers for follow-up matters.
On April 14, the day the water source pollution in Bacmeng Village was discovered, Yangtang Township government staff rushed to the scene. Three days later, the township government issued a rectification notice to the pig farm, requiring the company to do three "thorough things": thoroughly control the source of pollution, thoroughly control water pollution, and thoroughly reflect on the pollution incident.
After the incident, the local environmental protection department also launched an investigation.
"We are handling it and have opened a case for investigation." On May 9, Zhou Tang, director of the Yongxing Branch of the Chenzhou Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau, told The Paper that environmental law enforcement officers are currently following up on the matter. "We must require that rectifications and punishments be in place." "
Liao Xiangwen, who was involved in handling the matter, said that he and his colleagues rushed to the scene on April 16 and saw the excrement piled up on the hillside. It was raining at the time, so they asked the pig farm to do emergency treatment and dug two pits. And put film on it for anti-seepage treatment, then shovel the pig manure into the pit, clean it up and transport it away immediately after the rain stops.
"They started to want to land it directly, but I didn't allow it." Li Jingxian said, "It would be a time bomb if it were landfilled. Pig manure is in the soil, and rainwater will always seep in."
On May 8, reporters from The Paper and several villagers saw on the hillside to the north of the pig farm that the manure residue that was originally piled in the open air had been cleared and transported away, and the ground-breaking area was estimated to be thousands of square meters. However, there is still a patch of manure that has not been cleaned up among the grass beneath the excavation marks. Villager Huang Huade inserted a bamboo stick into the dung pile. After taking it out, he said, "It's about 70 centimeters deep."
Standing on the hillside and looking out, you can see villages such as Bacmeng below the mountain.
After the pollution incident in mid-April, the village organized villagers to clean the wells in Bacmeng Village. Huang Shuihua, a villager who participated in the cleaning, said that the water pump was pumping water from the old well at that time. "It only took a few minutes to pump, and pig feces seemed to float up. It was very smelly, and everyone was wearing masks." Photos of the cleaning site showed that the water in the underground part of the well appeared black.
According to villager Huang Junde, the pig farm later organized personnel to clean the well. Once when he found out, he felt that he still couldn't "destroy the evidence", so he "confiscated" the other party's water pump and sent it to the village headquarters.
On April 28, the Yangtang Township government organized relevant persons in charge of the three companies involved to communicate "face-to-face" with the villagers. In the large conference room on the first floor of the township government, facing more than 30 villagers, Zhang Yongjun, the head of Hunan Beetle Environmental Technology Company, apologized when he spoke.
"First of all, I would like to express my deepest apologies to everyone for causing inconvenience and even some harm to everyone in all aspects of life and production. On behalf of three companies, I am deeply sorry." The recording at the time shows that Zhang Yongjun said: "How to solve the water source problem, I I may not be able to express my opinion. After consultation with Tianqi and Xinwufeng, our three units will definitely give you a reasonable answer.”
On May 2, some villagers who did not wait for the "reply" took "action" to prevent the pig farm from transporting pigs. "They moved all the pigs away. What if they don't deal with this matter?" said a villager. After that, the villagers took turns to "on duty" on the roadside about one kilometer away from the pig farm.
"Cars transporting feed can go in, but vehicles transporting pigs cannot come out." On May 8, villager Huang Xiangjun, who was "on duty" at a roadside shed, told The Paper that the villagers' "on duty" was a helpless move. "Raising pigs" He was doing Tai Chi with us on the spot and was dragging his feet."
At present, the Laojing drinking water area in Bacmfen Village has not been "unblocked", and villagers still go to the village headquarters every day to receive bottled pure water.
After removing manure and cleaning wells, the quality of well water in Bacmeng Village has been significantly improved. On May 8, The Paper reporter saw 9 inspection reports issued by the Yongxing County Center for Disease Control and Prevention at the Yangtang Township Government. These reports show that the relevant indicators were within the standard limits, and no total coliform bacteria were detected in nine sampling locations, including public wells in Bacmen Village, wells in villagers' homes, and tap water. The "sample collection dates" of these nine reports are all April 29.
Some villagers are skeptical about the above test results. "Why did the CDC come to collect water for testing only half a month after the accident?" Villager Huang Zhiguang said that he would consider applying for a third-party agency to test the water quality.
On May 8, the heads of the three companies involved went to the Yangtang Township Government to discuss the handling of follow-up matters. “As for how to deal with this matter, our first priority is to solve the source problem.” Liu Yixiao, the legal representative of Yongxing County Tianjue Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company, told The Paper: “We came here today and discussed with the township in detail how to appease them. The work of the villagers.”
On May 9th and 10th, the Yangtang Township government organized the companies involved to negotiate with the villagers. On the morning of the 10th, according to villagers who participated in the consultation, the two sides have not yet reached an agreement on whether the follow-up treatment of this matter should be to replace the water source, or to compensate the villagers for their losses.
Reflection: The pig farm was complained about two years ago. How to strictly control pollution?
After the pollution incident, the Yangtang Township government's notice requiring the companies involved to make rectifications focused on "thorough reflection on the pollution incident" and requested to prevent similar things from happening again.
In fact, villagers complained about the pollution problem at the pig farm of Yongxing County Tianjue Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company in Jingxing Village in 2022. In November of that year, a video posted online by villagers showed that the excrement in the pig farm's manure shed was discharged directly along the road to the hillside. There is also a video showing that the wastewater from the pig farm is discharged directly from the ditch down the hillside, and the wastewater is black.
The person who shot the above sewage video was a villager from Dongcheng Village, Yangshi Town, Guiyang County.
On May 8, reporters from The Paper came to a natural village called Lachong in Dongcheng Village, which borders Yongxing County and is only a few hundred meters away from the pig farm in Pingdingling. As soon as the reporter entered the village, he smelled the stench of pig feces in the air.
"It's better today, but sometimes it smells worse," said villager Lei Sixing.
According to Lei Siyi, the old party secretary of Dongcheng Village, villager Lei Yuluo and others, in 2022, the pig farm of Tianjue Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Company began to raise pigs. Soon after, the well water in the village became contaminated and became drinkable. Later, the pig farm compensated the three groups of villagers a total of 40,000 yuan. The pig farm stopped raising pigs the next year, and the well water pollution problem was brought under control.
"We communicated with the environmental protection department last year and decided to let 20,000 animals be raised on a trial basis," said Li Jingxian, secretary of the Yangtang Township Party Committee. "This is the second batch, but there was something wrong with all 20,000 animals."
“So far, a total of two batches of pigs have been raised. The first batch is 30,000 pigs, and this batch is 19,000 pigs.” Liao Xiangwen from the Yongxing Ecological Environment Bureau told The Paper that the scale of the pig farm involved will be determined in the future. The control will be based on the actual situation. "If you raise 19,000 heads now, which will have an impact on the surrounding environment, then you will have to reduce the number, or solve this matter later."
Regarding the pollution problem when the pig farm raises the first batch of pigs in 2022, Liao Xiangwen said that he was transferred not long ago and was not clear about it.
Because the pig farm involved is located on a mountain top and is designed to produce 80,000 pigs per year, many villagers are worried about its sewage treatment.
"Including pig manure and pig urine, the sewage discharge per day of a pig is generally calculated as 0.01 cubic meters." Huang Tuxiang, a villager with 20 years of experience in animal husbandry, analyzed: "Raising 20,000 pigs will discharge 200 tons of sewage per day. "
On May 8, reporters from The Paper, along with Huang Tuxiang and other village representatives, visited the sewage treatment station of the pig farm involved. As soon as they entered the treatment tank, they smelled a pungent odor. "My body stinks, my car stinks, it stinks inside and out." Jiang, a technician from Hunan Beetle Environmental Technology Company, took the villagers to visit the sewage treatment system, including the collection tank, solid-liquid separator, and regulating tank. , oxidation pond, etc. Jiang said that although he smells bad, the sewage treatment will ensure the effect. "The water that passes through our system will never smell bad. I can guarantee that."
Liao Xiangwen, who is engaged in environmental law enforcement, told The Paper that the wastewater outlet of the pig farm involved "has been monitored online" and "is not connected to the Internet yet, but the data can be checked at any time."
